I really don’t know why this happens but I remember things at night. I can’t count the number of times I wake up in the morning with a thought about something I’m doing. Sometimes I even wake up in the middle of the night and have to get up and make a note or I’ll forget it. It happened last night. As I took my shower this morning to get ready to go to church, I remembered something I could have done yesterday to avoid driving the wrong way to the Blue Ridge Polymer Clay Guild meeting. And it’s such a simple thing! In fact, many of the compensatory strategies are simple if I’d only remember and do them!

I was running a little late yesterday so I dashed into the car and went on my way. I didn’t think about the directions to where I was going. I used to jump in my car and go where I needed to go all the time. The problem is my brain works differently now. The directions were in my brain but I needed to take a minute or two to get them out. I would have taken the correct highway if I had spent two minutes doing this. Instead, I ran out the door and drove the wrong way. Folks do this all the time. Usually they realize it and then make the necessary corrections.

For me it isn’t this easy. It threw my whole system off. Cognitive overload took over and I became “spacey” and couldn’t make the necessary correction. I had to return to where I started and once I did this, I knew exactly where I was going. Well maybe not exactly where I was going, since I had to check for landmarks along the way to be certain I was going the right way. It all could have been avoided if I had taken the two minutes necessary to get the directions out of my brain. Or if I had taken the written directions with me.

This process has helped me realize something about this blog. Writing about my experiences is forcing me to reflect upon them. I hope I’ll remember now to take a few minutes before I do something to think about it. For example, I have to lead communion tonight at church. (Circle of Mercy, my night church.) I spent a few minutes yesterday trying to think of something to say that would flow from the rest of the service. Now I need to take a few minutes and make sure my notes are together.

Plus, I need to spend time asking for God’s Spirit to speak through my words and my being. Many folks at the Circle can lead communion without notes but since my brain works differently now, I cannot do this. I have to plan ahead and rely on God’s energy to work through me. And God always does.

I’m in Holland now not in Italy. As I wrote in an earlier post, “if I spend hours brooding and mulling over my losses, I’ll never get to enjoy the extraordinary things that are here in Holland . And Holland has some extraordinary things.”